tablet than before. >> they say the microsoft tablet would be the next big thing. he's 22. i want to point that out. >> we'll consider him the leading edge. >> thank you for joining us. thank you. everybody else, enjoy the rest of your weekend. we'll see you back here on monday. "squawk on the street" begins right now. ♪ have a holly jolly christmas it's the best time of the year ♪ ♪ i don't know if there will be snow but have a cup of cheer ♪ ♪ have a holly jolly christmas ♪ and when you walk down the street ♪ >> bargain hunters starting to hit the malls across the country rushing to get in and get a jump on the holiday shopping season. will it be the strong start retailers are counting on? welcome to "squawk on the street" this day after thanksgiving. hope you had a great holiday. i'm melissa lee along with brian sullivan a sulliv sullivan. let's look at how we're up for

this abbreviated session. this is historical tendency in terms of the period between thanksgiving and december 3rd. most of the time we are higher in the markets and we're seeing that play out so far in future. look at the picture in europe. a surprise increase in german business confidence there really helping to push the indices higher across the board with the exception of spain which is down by .2 of 1%. it is the most wonderful time of the year for the retailers. millions of shoppers are hitting the malls this black friday looking for door buster deals. a number of stores including walmart, target and toys "r" us upping the ante with thanksgiving night openings. 147 million people will hit the malls and stores friday through saturday slightly below last year's levels. unbelievable number of people who started lining up so early. i mean, a week ago. >> those people we saw at best buy with the tents. we assume they got whatever they were after. i certainly do. i certainly do. >> there were unconfirmed

reports mark sanchez was in line at dick's sporting goods at 1:00 in the morning. that cannot be confirmed. >> what was he looking for? >> a new center with a smaller rump. >> less than a minute in and we have referenced new york jets of course. they really are a great franchise. look at these people streaming in. how many have any concern about the ficscal cliff? >> probably none. who knows what the fiscal cliff is or what it means for their paycheck. >> they aren't worried. we'll see how numbers pan out. should be a big shopping weekend for the retailers. cyber-monday is around the corner. this is a big three days. it's funny. cyber-monday first came about when people didn't have high-speed internet.

they would have to go to work and shop because it wasn't common. now it's common to have high-speed internet access at home and still you have cyber-monday. >> just as a point of note here, street signs are not allowed to say cyber-monday. i don't believe it. it's five bucks in the beer jar. you already owe 15 bucks. >> it's not "street signs." >> we play by a different set of rules here at post 9. >> we play by melissa's rules here at post 9. >> yours too, david. >> mine too. absolutely. we will be watching any number of retailers in terms of stocks. we'll see how some of the laggers do today. jcpenney. we'll be talking to the chief merchandise officer at sears later in the program. interesting to see given how poor the report was there. >> don't we have the former ceo of jcpenney on also. one of the best department store

executives ever. jcpenney started its slide after he stepped down. can't wait to hear what he thinks about ron johnson and he says jcpenney stores were dark in the malls. a great interview. >> it will be especially critical holiday shopping season for best buy. the struggling electronics retailers posted weak third quarter sales. let's go to jane at a best buy in california with a look at black friday traffic there. how is it shaping up? >> i cracked the code. don't come here at midnight. come here at 6:00 a.m. cindy, when did you first get here? >> midnight. >> what did you do? >> leave. >> why. >> because the lines were crazy. i saw your news truck and there was no way i was going to get in and get what i wanted. >> people were waiting two hours in line. sometimes more. how long did you wait in line? >> not at all. >> there's only 20 people. >> nothing. >> but what i wanted is gone. >> there you have it. thank you very much. if you look, it's not that busy right now. earlier it was crazy.

estimated 1,000 people outside. and as best buy really struggles, management is trying to impress and inspire employees to make it worth it for customers to come in here especially those who have been camped out for days. >> we're excited to be here. this is our super bowl. >> this black friday will be a test of the renew blue strategy that best buy has. management is trying to remedy a reputation for poor customer service and perception of higher prices. what we see is we went outside and asked before the doors opened, the first two guys in line been here since sunday night. whether they come in best buy and check out merchandise and go home to buy on amazon. >> not really. i like to put it in my hands and feel it and look at the product. >> sometimes i do. depends on the deals. whoever has the best deal, i'll buy from them. that's why i'm here tonight.

>> citi says there's a long road ahead. you don't buy a separate gps device and camera anymore, you get it all on one device. like she said, all door busters are gone so are the long, long lines. they will probably get a second wave around 9:00 a.m. or after the sun comes up at least. that's been my experience. back to you. >> is there a second round of door busters or specials to lure more people in later on in the day? >> no. there are continuing door busters online that they may still have in stock. like the $180 40-inch televisions, those are gone. some at midnight went to kohl's at midnight and did shopping there and came back here at 5:30. doesn't that sound fun? >> wow. dedicated shopping out there. good to see you.

good luck out there. who will be the winners and losers on black friday. let's bring in jennifer davis, retail analyst, for her take on this. jennifer, i would imagine it's too early to tell. so far what are you finding in terms of jane was reporting on door busters gone very early on. can a store like a best buy with no more door busters or special keep them coming on in? >> let me just say that we follow a lot of the mall based retailers so we're in the malls most of the time where there isn't a best buy. so last night we were in the malls starting at midnight and it was very, very busy. that's when the teams are out shopping. the teen retailers were busy. so traffic died down in the malls around 4:00 or 5:00 this morning. a little slower now than it was last year. so still early to make a call. we'll be back in there to see what's going on.

>> were people buying things or hanging out at the mall? >> i hope if they're there at midnight until 3:00 in the morning they are buying. i would say about 75% of the shoppers had bags and most of those people had multiple bags. people were definitely there buying. >> maybe you can answer this question because i'm curious about how important it is to get people into the stores. we said i'm going to buy this tv and buy it online. if you buy it in a store, there's a good chance, i'm guessing, you're going to buy other things impulsively as well. something you may not do online. any way to gauge how much more people will spend when they get into a physical store versus simply going online for the same item? >> that's hard to tell. i mean, they definitely do. a lot of -- especially apparel and accessories which we cover are very emotionally driven. you walk in and you may be walking into to buy a $5 t-shirt and buy something else you like and you buy that as well.

definitely incremental purchases. >> history tells us this is not the time of year to buy retail stocks. it's the period prior to holiday shopping season that retail stocks fare the best and between black friday and end of the year retail stocks broadly underperform the s&p 500. of your universe do you think there's a stock there that will be have better than peer gains for the rest of the year? >> our favorite names are going into the holidays are gap, limited, tj max. we think they are well positioned. we think those stocks will probably outperform the rest of the group. >> tjx has been nailing it. a lot of people forget it's not just the stores they've got for clothes and goods but also home odss and the furniture side. the stock has had a heck of a run the last couple years. how much real growth does tjx

have left? >> it has a lot of growth left. you know, in terms of earnings, we think that margins can go higher. expansion opportunity throughout europe and still a lot of opportunity in the u.s. growing tj max and marshall's and home goods in some smaller markets that they hadn't originally thought they could go into. definitely still think there's room there. >> jennifer, you cover saks as well. do the shorts have something to the story? do they know something that maybe we don't? >> saks did see a slowdown. part of it was related to superstorm sandy. a little over 20% of their business is done in the new york store. i would say 40% of sales are in the northeast. they have been impacted by that.

also, you know, i think that maybe we're seeing a little bit of a pause maybe at that high end. maybe kind of more the aspirational customer at the high end. so i think that they're seeing a bit of a slowdown feeling a little bit more than maybe some of their peers that have moderately priced items. >> thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. walmart facing union organized protests at some locations across the country this black friday. among the protesters, some employees walking off the job. hampton pearson is at capital plaza market in woodland. is it just the fact that some were forced to work on thanksgiving night or are there bigger issues here? >> reporter: it's both. cut to the chase, there are bigger issues. number one, a well orchestrated protest is under way. the marchers are on the move. 250 to 300 taking the route to

end up in the parking lot behind me. walmart has kept us off the property because of the protest. we understand eventually what will happen is those protesters are going to end up in the parking lot behind me. meet with some walmart officials and present a sort of letter they hope to present to walmart management on behalf of any employees who decide to leave the job today to come out and be a part of what's going on literally around us. to your core point, there has been pressure from organized labor and labor supported groups to step up pressure on walmart and to unionize certain aspects of its operation. walmart has 4,500 stores in the states. none of them unionized. this is a stepped up campaign. of course walmart filed an nlrb complaint last week saying some

activities in recent weeks have bordered on disrupting their business practices. it couldn't be resolved in time in terms of injunction that would have prevented protests here and around the country. union groups and their supporters say up to 1,000 events leading up to and including black friday so the unions have their black friday agenda. walmart attentive to customers. some 35 million on black friday a year ago. basically focusing there but at the same time having to deal with protests like this not only at this store and here the strategy is this will be a road show, if you will. these 250 folks will get back on the buses and go to other walmarts throughout the area later on today. back to you guys. >> hampton, a quick question and maybe you can't answer it because i know it sounds like they did move you off the property. is there a lot of people shopping there? it seems like this would keep

people out of the store. they don't want to be part of it. >> reporter: actually i've been in the store two or three times. the funny thing about it and maybe you have data to verify it, there were actually people -- there were more people here when we got here about 4:30 this morning in the store shopping getting some of those overnight bargains. we don't know what the fallout was from the 8:00 bargains last night. then there was a lull for most of the morning. so, you know, that's the shopping story here. one store, one snapshot. it is -- we've seen people, you know, going out the door with flat screen tvs and this, that and the other but the store was busier at 4:30 this morning than it is right now. >> hampton, thank you. here's a road map for a busy black friday on "squawk on the street." we've got sears and kmart's president. will the holiday shopping season be what the doctor ordered for two well known stores trying to

overcome sale slumps. >> what black friday will main for two very different types of stores. and we'll talk with the former ceo of jcpenney and other retailers. he has a reputation for being a turnarou turnaround expert. >> and just a quick reminder today is a shortened trading day. nyse and nasdaq and cme close at 1:00 eastern. as for commodities, a close an hour later. what's black friday traffic like at the giant mall of america in minnesota? we'll take you there for a live report. let's take another look at futures as we set up as david mentioned for this holiday shortened trading session. we are looking at a higher open across the board. lots more "squawk on the street" straight ahead.

apple is offering deals online and at retail stores right now. if you have your eye on the most recent ipad, you can get it for a savings of $41. for ipad two, you can get one for $368, and for mac book pro you can have a savings of $191. not too bad. tempting. >> i have mine.

it's a few generations ago. i did notice that barclays purchased 8,500 for employees as we watch this device really become central in the enterprise. something we have seen over the last few years. many people didn't expect it originally with what was consumer devices from apple. it has the iphone of course. we watched our own be replaced. and of course the ipad as well now. >> i have submitted it also. i have given up. >> tablets -- i saw that walmart is offering a $59 tablet. not familiar with the maker. it's some long name. some generic maker of a tablet. it runs android software. it's running google software. 79 bucks for $59. it's probably small. it's running android. it's a tablet. you look at an ipad at 399 and

say i just want to read books and surf the web. here's a $79 tablet. that's a bigger threat to me than apple fatigue is low priced competition. >> or give them to your kids because it's cheaper and you don't care if they drop them on the floor. >> they'll spill orange juice on it or whatever it is. >> nobody will buy a laptop again. >> exactly. coming up next, can the bulls expect a jolly trading session this black friday? we'll get to traders perspective next and what does a veteran executive known for turning around retailers have to say about black friday. we'll talk to allen questrom. much more "squawk on the street" straight ahead. or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky.

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how how big is black friday at one of the nation's giant malls? nbc news correspondent jay gray is at the mall of america in minneapolis and joins us now. take it away. yes. i'm doing that because of course we can't hear jay unfortunately. that is a very large mall though from what i understand. >> it's hard to string cable around the mall of america surrounding the groups of people walking getting their daily exercise going down the slide perhaps. the mall of america is without a doubt the most representative thing about america that i know. >> the worst place to be today is what i was going to say. >> depends on who you are. >> if you're mark sanchez, go

there and nobody will know who you are. >> back to that. >> second reference. sorry. we are just a couple minutes away from the opening bell. a shortened day. we'll trade nonetheless. let's bring in matthew. he has kids day here at nyse. matt has his girls just off camera. this will be the most high pressured interview that you have ever done. don't screw up. they'll know. >> it's good they are not on camera because they were going to give me rabbit ears. >> they are now. >> trying to embarrass me. >> obviously black friday is getting all of the attention. cypress looking for a bailout. a lot of conflicts without eurozone. it's a fun retail focus day. a lot of macro issues still out there for this market. >> last week earlier in the week it was surprising. one of the biggest accounting scandals possibly. an insider trading scandal. >> same week. >> markets went higher. now retail may give us a lift.

retail is up. banks are up. it's fairly strong despite what we see overseas. >> historically this is a strong time. history has told us the period between thanksgiving and december 3rd markets are up 17 of the last 20 years. do you think that will followthrough this year given the other fiscal cliff washington comes back into session next week. >> don't think the fiscal cliff will bear down until after this. this is historically strong period. we're coming off a pretty good sell-off after the elections. we had sandy to deal with also. this has taken our mind off that which is a nice change of pace for the people on the east coast. so the holiday season gives us something to cheer about. the markets have done their part this week. >> how are we setting up for next week given that next week is going to be a full trading session for one but as i mentioned, washington gets back to business hopefully and maybe gets some work done. >> is it back to business? are we going to expect anything out of them? down here it doesn't seem like we are. i don't want to say that we've

lost hope but the fiscal cliff, we don't think it will happen, we really don't. i don't expect anything out of washington. i would look more toward overseas and what they're seeing. things are going to keep falling. >> what matters more to the markets, spain or the fiscal cliff? >> the fiscal cliff is so quiet this week. i'm going to say spain. a bigger linchpin short-term going into next week. >> matt, thank you for stopping by. a special black friday treat for you. sears and kmart president one of the retailer ceos joining us today. opening bell is up next. [ male announcer ] this is steve.

he loves risk. but whether he's climbing everest, scuba diving the great barrier reef with sharks, or jumping into the market, he goes with people he trusts, which is why he trades with a company that doesn't nickel and dime him with hidden fees. so he can worry about other things, like what the market is doing and being ready, no matter what happens, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense, from td ameritrade. >> this >> this is a live picture of cairo. protestors there demonstrating a day after the president there ordered that he can run the country unchecked until a new constitution is drafted. you can see thousands there. we're monitoring the situation there as we speak.

protesters bearing down in cairo, egypt. we're getting set for another day of trading here. there you have it. opening bell on wall street. kids day here. day after thanksgiving at the new york stock exchange. we see a lot of junior traders filling orders here at the new york stock exchange. ronald mcdonald house charities celebrating kids day here. and sears holding celebrating black friday. we'll talk with sears in just a little bit's time. we are to the upside if you look at the s&p 500 heat map right now. >> it has feeling like it's been two weeks but it's only one. a week in which as we heard from matt where we had major news this week. not expecting to get any today. certainly the alleged fraud at autonomy and hp stock hitting a ten-year low and not to mention the continued insider trading investigation that included a major indictment of someone.

two major stories during the course of the week. >> i know you have been involved in hp and breaking a lot of news related to it. hp was such a huge story. we're not talking about a mid sized company and the problems that they had. this is a dow component. the best bankers and best auditors and you have basically a write-off of nearly 90% of the value. this is a dow component. they can say we blew it on this deal. how do you write off 8.8 billion in a year? >> it's stunning. there's just no way around it. and this story will continue of course for quite some time. we will see whether those charges are well-founded because we have investigations going on at both the s.e.c., u.k. serious fraud office. you're right. an $11 billion all cash deal. much of that 5.3 billion the result of what they claim was

fraud. that is our word. >> do you think auditors are n confli conflicted. >> there's a big incentive for me to not say something. >> you can argue that auditors in some ways are akin to the rating agencies. how strong is the quality of their people? how hard are they really going at things to do due diligence. fraud by its nature is hard to detect. it requires an extra effort one would argue to actually see if there is some. >> hewlett packard, nice bounce off decade lows after david broke that story last week. we should also note that giant jump in shares of rimm this morning. research in motion shares up sharply after national bank financial which is a bank of canada raised price target to 15 bucks from 12 bucks a share. they are citing the extra month blackberry will have.

widely expected that blackberry 10 would launch in march. they're launching in february. they say that will add handset sales. they are seeing 35.5 million units to ship up from their estimate of 31.6 million units. they do say applying fundamental valuation is tough on a company like rimm but management is managing to keep costs low and cash flow moving. >> it's almost doubled in two months. down in low sixs in late september. a dismal story but not a bad run in two months. >> even best buy is up almost 2% this morning. another stock by the way that has suffered greatly the same week. it has a feeling of being two separate weeks after the company reported very disappointing numbers. you can see best buy shares up. we spoke with jane wells earlier at best buy. the lines are not bad now.

it was the midnight lines that were particularly onerous. >> i made a point of looking at the best buys on the way in today and parking lots were not crowded. >> interesting to see jane and hampton saying earlier before dawn was much bigger. last night was much busier than what they see now in the full light of day. >> as we have said many times, it's the period after thanksgiving and a couple weeks from now where we get a sense as to whether there's any life in that potential bid for the company from its former ceo, founder richard schultz. we'll see. if you throw in $16 bid, that's still a very significant premium. >> did we make too big of a deal about black friday given the biggest sales days of the year are always a couple days leading up to christmas? >> of course we do. >> that's what we do. we're part of the media. >> if we didn't talk about black

friday, what would we talk about? >> i'm a trusted member of the media. >> in quotes. we're watching walmart. walmart saying that it reported its best ever black friday events. their words. the retailer saw larger crowds than last year. and they serve millions of customers. 22 million customers. >> shouldn't every year be better than the previous year? am i throwing out questions i shouldn't be throwing out? >> feel free to ask any question you want. that's what we're here for especially on the day after thanksgiving. >> there are no dumb questions. >> population is growing. the internet use is growing. er yeevery year we're up from lt year. of course we're up. there are 4 million people in this country before we leave this fine planet. with my lifestyle, it could be next week. >> we hope not, brian. that's awful. let's check in with mary

thompson. >> hope you had a nice thanksgiving. we're off the best levels of the day for the dow. up about 64 points. now holding onto a 57-point gain. gains today fairly broad based. the markets right now poised to close out what's been a very strong week. one shortened today and of course yesterday closed for the holiday. the s&p on track for its best weekly performance in almost five months leaving the s&p higher over the week had been consumer discretionary materials and telecom stocks. tech stocks are poised for their first positive week in ten among the stocks that helped to drive the tech group higher this week, apple along with others like sales force.com contributing to that and of course the nasdaq is up 17 points as we speak today. of course we'll be watching retailers throughout the session. national retail federation expecting holiday sales to be up about 4.1% this year.

a little bit less than the gain we saw last year. fairly healthy. so of course we'll be listening closely to what all reporters have to say about what they've seen at the stores so far today. lastly we want to note earlier today we saw a pop in the ueuro to a three-week high. it tracks closely to s&p and given a lift by the german business confidence reading which came in stronger than expected. right now the dow is up 60 points. brian, back to you. >> thank you very much. let's head uptown to the nasdaq and che . >> technology is a bright spot as mary thompson mentioned. research in motion a big winner. national bank raising price targets. the new management team is executing by maintaining blackberry subscriber base and overall this is a trend that we have been seeing more recently this optimism on the street around research in motion's

blackberry 10 device scheduled to release early next year. a mixed bag on social media stock this year. tiger global disclosed a 9.9% stake. we've seen shares rise just this week with shares of groupon up 30% on the week. a commendable run. and in lieu of black friday and more people shopping online, we're keeping our eye on online players. online sales up nearly 18% on thanksgiving versus last year as of 9:00 p.m. eastern last night. back to you. >> thank you very much. let's shift to bonds and the dollar. for that we go to rick santelli at the cme in chicago. rick? >> hi, david. you know many times holiday markets, you continue whatever sort of lean the markets had. that seems to be true today.

the recent lean of equities is better. the lean in treasuries is more selling and pushing yields up and if you look at a 24-hour chart, you can see we're only up a basis point. you can definitely see the trend in the last couple of hours has been higher yields and a bit of a sell-off. if you look at the chart for one month, you can certainly see that we've climbed toward the top end after we broke out of that tight closing range between 1.58 and 1.61 in terms of yield. now, let's look at the currency side. on this two-day chart we overlaid the euro versus the dollar and ten-year boone rates. many are watching the euro. the more strength it gets, the more selling pressure we see in safe harvard bunds. you can clear say that it has been doing better and a lot of those stories whether it is greece or today in particular we saw better confidence out of germany. the real question is how long does it last.

sully, welcome to "squawk on the street" and back to you. >> rick, thank you very much. hope you had a great thanksgiving. appreciate it. i'm happy to be here. not sure the viewers are. let's check in now with latest moves on energy and go up to jackie at the nimax. >> we're watching oil prices this morning flat to slightly higher. wti is holding above $87 a barrel and traders are telling me we'll be in an affected range for the next couple of weeks absent big catalyst like the middle east. we have the cease-fire but we have to see how long it lasts. that's a trigger to the upside. trigger to the downside could be strength in the dollar and also data coming out of the u.s. we'll have to keep a close eye on that. fiscal cliff is a wild card. traders don't expect imminent news. we're keeping an eye on the metals complex. gold is seeing strength on euro strength today. generally a cautious tone here for the traders who are on the floor today. back over to you, david. >> all right. thanks very much. we want to turn our viewers

attention now to a pitch battle going on for quite sometime but reaching a tipping point between the government of argentina led by its president and new york based hedge fund manager paul singer well known the man who runs elliott capital management. he's one tough foe. all of this goes back to the bond default of many years ago and restructuring that resulted in 93% of those who held its sovereign bonds getting a new piece of paper that was worth about 30 cents or so on the dollar. you see it right there. however, mr. singer never did tender. never tendered. been in court ever since saying i didn't tender. i didn't agree to the exchange. i want to be paid in full. well, late wednesday a new york judge agreed with him and argen

elliott management interest payments and everything along with those interest payments to elliott by the 15th of december. why this is interesting? the government -- eargentina le by president fernandez said it won't do that and argentina could default. argentina doesn't have that much debt outstanding. it doesn't even go to capital markets the way it did generation ago in terms of its borrowing. borrows as much as what it needs from pension funds. you can see what's happened. if you're a hedge fund manager out there and you own bonds, you have had your face ripped off. there's a look there or even if you're in partially nationalized argentinean oil company with new management. many people feel positive about it in terms of what it can do.

nonetheless, you have also been hurt. so we are really in the midst of a true showdown here and we should determine -- we should know perhaps what will happen in the next couple of weeks. certainly something that's quite complex but wanted to draw our viewers attention to because it may be something we look at in the quick future. >> is there a chance that hedge fund managers are angry with elliott management because they got 30 cents of the dollar reopening a can of worms here. could this end up worse for a lot of people? >> it ended up worse already for those in argentinean bonds since then because they continued to trade. they seized in gaza a sailboat owned by the argentinean government. it is interesting. people wonder whether his aggressiveness is not going to pay dividends for them. we shall see. we shall see. let's send it over to melissa

now. >> i'm joined by the board chair of the ronald mcdonald house charities here celebrating kids' day at the nyse. pleasure to have you with us. we're joined by a lot of families and kids helped by ronald mcdonald house. a big year for you in terms of raising money for this very worthy cause. >> it is. as the year winds down, certainly our needs continue to grow and we certainly ask all of our great supporters to help us in the year and help more children. so the holidays, the season of giving, it means a lot to us to have people know what we're doing and help us to raise money to continue the great work. >> has it been difficult, a difficult time to raise money in that we're up against this fiscal cliff and so many corporations are concerned about it and every day americans are concerned about it as well. >> giving is difficult when it's a tough time. we've been true to the mission that we started so many years ago. we continue to talk about the work we do trying to help our families stay together, be stronger, heal faster.

it does resonate with people. there have been challenges but we've been very pleased with results. >> in terms of corporate sponsors, many have been there to years. >> mcdonald's is our largest single donor. we have others like coca-cola that's been with us since the very beginning and so many other sponsors who continue to help us whether they donate goods to various ronald mcdonald houses, serve on boards, write checks. large donor base of corporate sponsors. >> many ways of giving. thank you so much. good luck. good luck to all of the families and kids here today. >> thank you. >> brian, back over to you. >> thank you. as we take the pulse of black friday we're about to go to the midwest. courtney reagan back home in the buckeye state. how is ohio, courtney? >> so far it's really good. if this is the super bowl of retail, we have a lot of shoppers playing in overtime and they're not getting tired yet. we'll tell you what we see in

america's heartland coming up on "squawk on the street." can i help you?

i heard you guys can ship ground for less than the ups store. that's right. i've learned the only way to get a holiday deal is to camp out. you know we've been open all night. is this a trick to get my spot? [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. save on ground shipping at fedex office.

a good a good day for stock market.

that is your dow 30 heat map. 30 names in the dow 30. all 30 stocks are higher today. we call it the melissa lee effect. as of right now. >> let's head back out to the malls to see if traffic is picking up on this black friday. courtney reagan is at the mall in dayton, ohio, checking out the action. >> reporter: we're seeing a lot of bags here from macy's, bed, bath & beyond and bath & bodyworks. shoppers out in full force since midnight at this location. they're not going home yet. >> it's crazy. if you like craziness, it's a good place to be. >> i went at 7:00 to walmart and got out by 8:45. went home, finished homework and then i just came out again at

2:45. >> we opened at midnight last year as well. traffic has been more steady this year than it was last year. >> walmart says it served 22 million shoppers from those key hours of 8:00 p.m. to midnight last night. that's 10 million registered transactions over that period of time. 5,000 items per second. listen to this. since events began at 8:00 p.m., it sold 1.8 million towels. 1.3 million televisions. 1.3 million dolls and 250,000 bicycles. customer growth partners are out at the malls. what they're seeing is consumer electronics popular this year and toys. leap pad 2 hard to find. by 7:00 a.m. good luck if you are looking for that. the wii2 can be found. interesting at home depot and lowe's especially on the east coast, many are sold out of generators. this could be some sandy impact.

it could just be gearing up again for the winter. who knows. that's an interesting observation nonetheless. johnson thinks that traffic is good but maybe not as good as years past because shoppers are starting to understand that some better deals can be had before black friday. >> there are better deals available earlier in the year. a little later in the season. but black friday is that time when you can say, okay, christmas is in the air. >> reporter: ibm says that online sales are up about 18% for thanksgiving day from last year. so we know that couch commerce does have impact on the traffic. i got to tell you, there's a lot of people out here shopping today. melissa? >> good time for retailers. thanks for that. courtney reagan in dayton. the holiday consumer giving the economy a big lift or will fears about the fiscal cliff get in the way? a roundtable discussion is up next.

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the the latest read on consumer sentiment bodes well for the retail season but while consumer are out shopping there are concerns about the fiscal cliff. joining us is the chief international economist with deutsche bank securities and steve is chief u.s. economist. we've seen people out there buying towels at walmart. we're not sure why. none of them are particularly aware of the fiscal cliff. when will they be as consumers and when will it start to have a real impact on buying? >> that's a real unusual thing at the moment. the market is worried about the cliff. corporates are worried about the cliff. consumers, they don't seem to worry much and i think the real secret is consumer sentiment is driven by the stock market going up. as long as market still is doing

well, consumers will also be hanging in there. >> steve, same question to you. is it january 1st? is it january 30th if we don't get a deal that we start to see a decline in spending by consumers? >> it tends to be right after the cliff takes place that you'll see the consumers pay apensi attention to it. people came into the election with a positive sentiment that we'll see in terms of consumer sentiment numbers. what's more important is whether there's consumer spending that will take place and optimism will lead to gdp growth. the answer is no. corporations are cutting back production. this entire christmas season is going to come out of inventory so the net effect on the economy is not going to be that good. we're going to be stuck with a very, very slow below trend growth rate in the fourth quarter of the year even if it is a good holiday season. >> at what point do you get concerned about the housing market which has shown many signs of recovery at this point but if consumers are looking ahead to buying a home, maybe they are more forward thinking

than the average consumer buying a towel at walmart. >> the consumer will look at the industry of where pricing is for rentals and where the interest rate that they will pay on the home is. if you look at the relative discrepancy between home prices and home rental rates, you see a very sharp narrowing in that spread and the low interest rate environment is keeping them optimistic. we have turned the corner on housing. will it be strong enough to push it to a higher growth percentage and that's whether or not there is employment that takes place and as i said with the economy functioning and where corporations are cutting back you won't see that boost to the economy going into the spring season. >> we heard earlier this week from fed chief bernanke who said to washington it's your problem. figure out how to fix it. don't look at us to help. what is your anticipation? we have a fed meeting coming up

soon. twist is going to be gone soon. what can or will the fed do given this uncertainty? >> absolutely. this is really a big headache for the fed because when they had their meeting on the 12th of december, they won't know if we're going over the cliff or not and the uncertainty is unemployment rate at 7.8. for such a significant impact potentially on the economy that this is just a huge very difficult thing to deal with so that's why it becomes very, very difficult to assess when we don't know where the process is going to end. >> do we get twists at the at least and keep that in place into 2013? they will do more not on mortgages but they will just do outright purchases of treasuries. >> we have to leave it there. thanks to both of you. jcpenney, neiman marcus, macy's, just some of the store chains allen questrom used to

run and matthew shay will be here when "squawk on the street" comes right back. or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series from brother. easy to use. it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing.

good morning. welcome to good morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." let's get to the road map for the next hour. we're taking the pulse of the consumer and retailers this black friday. who better to talk to than allen questrom. >> national retail federation ceo matthew shay will tell us how he thinks black friday is going so far and what kind of holiday shopping season he's expecting for his industry. >> things this morning not jolly for walmart. protests regarding rollback of black friday into thanksgiving night. should federal labor officials intervene? we'll ask a former nlrb member. >> bulls opening we'renting the most wonderful time of the year. can we expect a santa claus rally. >> let's head out west for a closer look at the action on

black friday. jane wells has been up since yesterday is at a best buy in california. 72 starbucks in. how's it going? >> reporter: i'm pretty wired, brian. the sun is up hear. you can see it kind of looks like a regular best buy on maybe a friday morning. you look inside and the mad rush is over and if you look over here right now, i see two people over there waiting in line. two people down there at the end waiting in line. a third one coming up. seven hours ago it was not like this. estimated 1,000 people waited outside for doors to open. some camped out since sunday night spending almost 100 hours in line before the doors opened here on a day crucial to best buy as it tries to kick-start sales. why best buy? why not walmart or target? >> walmart i heard, you know,

they were open all day and a bunch of people there. you know, best buy has the better deals i think. >> reporte >> i like the warranty, i buy everything here. >> i look at the prices and go to amazon and research more information, user ratings, things like that. >> why are you here tonight? >> the deals are the best over any amazon deal, any online deal. 180 40-inch tv is an amazing price. >> those $180 tvs are gone. huge lapd presence here after ten people were injured by a customer who pepper sprayed a crowd waiting to buy xboxs. we had uniformed officers and private security and no incidents reported in this neighborhood. back to you. >> do you get the sense that any shoppers there understand the difficulties best buy has been

going through? >> yes. you know what, some of the people waiting in line knew that they have had a tough year and i asked them, many of them, how often do you actually shop here. is it just black friday? one person says he comes about once a month. one person says he comes maybe four times a year. a few other people say it's just a black friday deal but they were aware. >> jane wells at a best buy in california. what can we expect in terms of black friday sales? matthew shay is president and ceo of the national retail federation and joins us first on cnbc. it's great to have you with us on black friday. 4.1% increase is expected in sales. as you look at the holiday season, what are major concerns that you have, if any, in terms of fiscal cliff worries, et cetera? >> great to be back with you. we're predicted 4.1% growth this year which will be $585 billion. that's a little bit lower than last year's actual which was

about 5.5%. we were out in the field like everyone doing these forecasts prior to the congressional and presidential election. we didn't have the new economic data. things look better. housing looks better. unemployment is trending the right way. the election is now settled. the fiscal cliff remains unsettled and is a major issue. earlier in the program some observers were saying that people aren't payin ing ing att to the fiscal cliff, nearly two-thirds are aware of general economic conditions. that's part of the consideration that they are taking into account before they do their holiday shopping. >> it makes you more optimistic 4.1% will be achieved? >> we're optimistic that we'll hit that number. it may be better. so we'll see how this weekend goes. and right now it looks like we're off to a great start. lots of traffic. you are seeing some of the sales pulled into yesterday. some of the stores open last night as retailers try to match

and exceed expectations of their customers. for the 2003 to '10 period, thanksgiving was the busiest online shopping day of the year. in recognition of that, now you see stores opening on thanksgiving trying to meet their customers expectations and deliver that value so they're not just sitting home doing couch commerce but out in the stores on thanksgiving night creating a new family tradition. >> i just want to make sure i understood you. you said the surveys you did indicated people were of general economic conditions. they know things are not great. unemployment rate is still right around 8%. but they probably don't know that their taxes may go up sharply toward the beginning of next year. fair to say? >> i think that's fair to say. i don't think that it's a particularly nuance perspective in terms of the facets of the fiscal cliff. everybody is generally aware that it's out there and it's hanging out there. i don't think people have an appreciation for the many

elements and the way it's going to hit. some of the debate that's taken place and some of the folks that have weighed in on this, we've seen lots of investment company managers and ceos of multibillion dollar companies saying we should put revenue on the table and that's a reasonable accommodation to make. we haven't talked to small businesses. more than a million small businesses who will file ordinary income rates and take a big hit and we know they're the job creators in this economy. they need to be part of the conversation. and i think our concern and what we're going to really watch for is we can't just keep kicking the can down the road and say we'll do something next year. the issue has to be revenues can be on the table. people have said that. speaker said that. business leaders have said that. but that alone isn't going to fix the problem. we can't tax our way out of this. we need to address the way we spend money and if we don't fix that as we go forward for the next generation, we'll be right back in the soup and have to have this fight all over again. >> all right.

thanks for joining us. appreciate it. matthew shay of nrf. s.a.c. capital advisers is at the center of biggest insider trading case after filed. criminal charges against a former portfolio manager that worked for crn. cnbc's kate kelly has more on this very much developing story. good morning, kate. >> good morning, david. you're right. developing is the word. "wall street journal" has an interesting story this morning about how federal prosecutors tried to get him to turn a year ago. apparently they failed. they could not convince him to go along with the case that they were attempting to build. there are two things i find interesting about that. one is that he refused to cooperate in a case being built against his former boss, steve cohen, who many thought for years was the big fish that

federal prosecutors and secondarily the s.e.c. may have been trying to go after in terms of numerous insider trading allegations the government has made against a number of hedge funds and expert networks including former employees of s.a.c. the fact he refuses to go along with that tells us they were trying to do it specifically. he and martoma discussed a trade that resulted in these quarter billion dollars in what the feds describe as ill gotten profits. we don't know what cohen knew about the fact that or at least the allegations that martoma had inside information. he did participate in the decision to sell the stake that resulted in money. seconda secondarily, i wonder if the evidence against martoma is strong. one is his refusal. if he thought there were tough charges and evidence that were

coming his way, he might have been convinced to cooperate. secondly, let's take a look at the lenganguage his lawyer used when this was first announced.fr who succeeded through hard work and pursuit of information in the public domain. what happened today is only the beginning of a process that we're confident will lead to his exoneration. lawyers are known to talk tough when it comes to defending their clients but in a case where the evidence was very strong against martoma, you might have seen a no comment or shorter comment or a we look forward to our day in court. >> of course the key here is whether or not martoma changes his mind from a year ago and decides whether to cooperate. that is at least the key when it comes to mr. cohen given the conversation at least one that we know of or was discussed in the complaint. but your point is a good one. we don't know what the defense is here in terms of mr. martoma

and his lawyer, do we? >> we don't. we have strong bullish language from charlie in favor of his client. we also have a fact that the feds have been trying for years to build a case against a higher up at s.a.c., probably cohen based on what we hear as of this week. so far it hasn't worked out. the other interesting tidbit from the other day, the journal reported there was a wiretap placed on one of steve cohen's phones sometimes around the time of this sale of this insider trading allegedly driven position. there was a two-week wiretap of cohen's phones. we don't know whether that wiretap was present when the key conversation was had with martoma or not. if you read the complaint, there's very little detail about that pivotal conversation. we really don't -- it's possible they're not showing their full hand them have more that we haven't seen. it's possible that they don't have a lot of case tying cohen

to insider trading allegations. >> kate kelly, thanks so much for that report. let's head back to headquarters and check on kayla tausche with more on the big move that we're seeing today on shares of research in motion. >> that pop that we saw in rimm stock has not faded at all. it's up nearly 12%. just in the first couple of hours of trading here. that's of course on the unveiling of the blackberry 10. we've been waiting for it for a long time. we hear that is finally going to happen on january 30th. couple that with a bullish analyst report about 2014 shipments and you can see why that rally is sustained. >> all right. thank you very much. we'll see more of kayla later. the holiday shopping season couldn't come at a better time for two well known names in retail. ront ronald boire we will share his game plan to lure shoppers into stores. and walmart employees protesting the fact that black friday began last night.

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representing management in employee related litigation and contract negotiations. thanks for joining us. the strike so to speak, let's call it that, or protests, don't seem to be impacting walmart's consumers ability to go in there and shop and buy towels and other things. why should this be an issue? >> it depends on what the circumstances are in each location where you see protests. the walmart request for injunctive relief isn't so much to protest terms of employment that is requiring employees to work on black friday, but rather the objective is to obtain recognition by walmart of the union. if that's the case, if it's an object to gain bargaining or recognitional rights that's

unlawful. it's whether the picketing went on for an unreasonable duration and may impact retail sales of walmart. if that's the case, there's a 30-day max when it comes to an unreasonable duration, then again the law indicates in the case law that walmart is entitled to relief. >> we've had a couple protesters on. the links seem apparent between protesters and organized labor. what, if anything, can we expect from nlrb down the road if this continues? >> typically the board rules on this type of request for relief fairly expeditiously. they try to rule on it within about three days, 72 hours. here i think what the board -- this particular board takes a fairly expansive view as to what does or doesn't constitute

recognitional picketing. i think in most circumstances they're going to require that the union make a present demand for recognition and absent that, they may not go ahead with the relief. however, if this type of picking goes on for considerable period of time and that's some of the allegations at certain locations or it's done on an intermittent basis coupledsh stoppages, you may see that. they have concluded their investigation with respect to a walmart complaint and i would suspect that a determination will made by the board in short order. >> we could actually see an injunction today so those protesters could be shut down effectively as soon as today. is that correct? >> i'm not sure you'll see injunction today. what you'll see is whether the board decides to move forward

with an injunction and then the board will make application to the federal district court in a given region where this type of activity is occurring and then it's up to the court to make that determination. typically if the board has its ducks in the row and reasonable cause to believe that it's a violation of ap-4, then they'll issue relief but i'm not sure you're going to see that today. you may see that -- it's possible. it's more likely you'll see it at the beginning of the week. >> we'll leave it there. thank you for your time. >> you're welcome. >> high tech stocking stuffers. a look at apple's flagship store in new york city. it looks like an average day, right? stick around for more on the ho hottest gadgets for holidays and bulls rule near the holiday season in 2011. can we expect another santa claus rally this year? more "squawk on the street" more "squawk on the street" coming right back. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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>> we are at >> we are at session highs.

up 0.8 of 1%. a broad use of the word rally here. up 107 points. ibm, microsoft, some of the leading gainers. bank of america is up more than 1%. strong day across the board. broad based gains here. ally financials will sell its share in a joint venture in china to general motors for 4.2 billion. phil lebeau has more on the story. >> many say this is smart use of cash that gm is sitting on. it has a nice cash pile they need to put to use and they're doing that by putting into ally financials international operations. they are looking at ally's international assets. that's what they are buying for 4.2 billion. that means lending in europe and latin america and 40% stake in a chinese joint venture that ally has in operation. that's a key part of this deal by the way given the growth of the chinese auto market.

again, this is all about gm expanding the finance operations and it's critical to the balance sheet for gm's international operations. gm is pushing financing returns internationally because that's really the growth market in terms of the captive finance operations for the entire auto industry. look at shares of general motors over the last two years since the ipo and some look at this saying they're not close to where they were at $33 a share for their ipo. are they going back to the same problems that got them in trouble that led them to bankruptcy? when gmac was a disaster and ultimately they were forced to sell gmac back in 2006, look at this when you look at the deal with ally financial. this is for international operations. when you look at what's happening in gm showrooms right now, this is not about the u.s. market. yes. the u.s. market in terms of auto lending is increasing as the market increases but delinquencies for the most part have been kept in check. they were down in the second quarter. there are a lot of people who

will look at this and won't read everything fully through. the bottom line is this. the captive finance market particularly on the international side of the business for all of the automakers, that's growing very quickly. gm needed to ramp up the exposure in that area and this is why they are buying the international operations from allied financial. brian? >> all right. phil lebeau, thank you very much. surely it is the season to shop and eat and spend time with family and friends but let's also not forget it is the season of giving. as salvation army kicks off the holiday giving campaign, john joins us now. john, thanks very much for joining us. we read there's a shortage of people that are willing to work with the salvation army to collect money. is that true? >> no, not at all. in fact, we have thousands and thousands of volunteers that help us raise over $140 million

through our red kettle effort across the united states and we're happy for the volunteers that come and help us out. >> that's good news. how have collections been so far? do you know? >> we're coming off and continuing to serve the folks devastated by the hurricane sandy. so it's really early on in our season. right now we're a little behind last year. people are very generous. they have helped us out with recovery program and we're sure they're going to help us out with a christmas effort as well. >> we look at hurricane sandy. this is an area here. you are nationwide. what are the trends that you have seen around america so far this year? spirit of giving still there? tell us it is. >> certainly is. during the most difficult times the american people rally and help us and we're sure that there will be sufficient funds to help those devastated by the hurricane but also through the

red kettle effort we'll help 30 million people throughout the year. we're confident in the american spirit and the generosity of the american people. >> a lot of concern, i know, about the economy. still a lot of people questioning their jobs. threat of higher potential taxes on the horizon. do you feel any of these things, fiscal cliff for example, will hurt your giving this year, john? >> it's hard for us to know but during the most difficult times the american people rally around. we've had so many donations through the hurricane effort that we believe that they will support us once again because they know that if they're hurting, other people are hurting even more. >> john, thank you so much. have a wonderful holiday season. good luck. we hope people do open their hearts and their wallets. >> thank you, brian. i know they will. >> he's been the ceo of store chains ranging from jcpenney to neiman marcus. up next, allen questrom on what kind of holiday shopping season he thinks retailers can expect and black friday event on

restaurants. meet a chef that ones a number of them including one at bloomibloom bloomibloom bloomingdale bloomingdale's. let's look at the session highs up dow 119 points and s&p adding 13 at this point. more "squawk on the street" just ahead.

>> look at the dow heat map. a sea of green. a good day. a half day of trading at 1:00.

still there are buyers in the market today. kids running around and cotton candy machine that melissa lee is guaranteed she'll jump into and eat her way out. >> at 10:30 eastern time is early for the cotton candy. >> breakfast of champions. don't tell the kids that. dow heat map lead the dow higher today. intel, hewlett packard, microsoft doing nicely. jcpenney celebrating black friday with one big sale of the year today. many competitors decided to open on thanksgiving day, jcpenney opened doors this morning. ceo ron johnson has been facing an uphill battle to reinvent the department store as sales continue to decline. joining us on cnbc line, allen questrom former chairman and ceo of jcpenney. it's a pleasure to have you on

the program. >> nice to be on. happy holiday. >> what do you make of jcpenney's turnaround so far? >> it's obvious they are having difficulty getting customers into the store. they'll be behind the 8 ball today because they open up later than competitors. i think what happens at christmastime will be consistent with what happens before christmas. stores doing well before christmas, macy's and nordstrom, those will all do just as well and about the same rate they did during the time leading up to that. right now the consumer confidence and spending returns are five-year highs. this is part of the fact that they take that from a somewhat stronger job growth with lower fuel price and housing market and those are all things that make people feel good going into

the economy. we talked about the cliff coming up. that's really the big thing going on is when that happens, if it does happen, what's going to happen next year? i think it's shameful that washington decision makers are in such a gridlock, this causes unnecessary worries over what's going to happen so it will affect people. the consumer generally is a trailing indicator. i think when you look at contrast the consumer who is positive right now and look at the business roundtable most recent surveys they are at the worst end in three years. >> great points. i want to get specific into jcpenney. what, if anything, is ron johnson doing wrong. there's something going wrong with the strategy because it's not gaining traction so far. what would you do right now? >> i think it's obvious that people are coming out because they see big bargains and big opportunities to get savings and i think that ron has decided to go in a different direction and probably at the worst time you could possibly do that when you have an economy that's tough.

you have unemployment high. so people are out looking for buys and bargains and he may not want to do that but he doesn't live in the world by himself. he's got competitors around him that are doing it. you'll see people will be lined up going to walmart and macy's last night and early this morning and 6:00 comes and they've gone home. that's a tough sell. now, how he does on the next part of his strategy, the question is can he get to the next part of his strategy because you can't drop 25% to 30% from your base and continue to keep cash in the register so that's going to be a tough challenge. >> that was my next question. you're a board member of many retail companies. you have run quite a few of them. he does have two large shareholders here still who support him. i'm curious. how much time does he have in your opinion, that being mr. johnson, to show traction for the strategy.

>> i don't think he has too many -- i don't think he has too many stores showing positive at all. i think down running 25% off and probably they'll be in that same category at christmastime. i don't know how long he has. he has a line of credit that he has and will continue so i think it depends on when he falls with that line of credit. i think a positive note is he certainly will look better when he gets into the first part of next year because he'll have gone past the opening sales. i don't see how he stays competitive with the people around him. that's the real challenge he has. >> it's brian sullivan. can you change a customer's mindset? can you bring in an entirely new type of customer to a store? >> you can. the problem is when you try to bring in a new customer, you lose all of the old customers

because what he's trying to do is trying to get somebody who is not there now and the transition to get people to finally say i like this idea. i'm sure people like -- i've been through the stores. they look very good. again, it's a value orientation that's key thing. that's why you see people lined up at 4:00 in the morning or at 7:00 at night to see the store opening at 8:00. people want those deals. i think unless you have a unique product that an apple product that no one else has, it's very difficult for you to dictate price. you have to be competitively priced all the time in regular price or sale price, that's a key that makes people move your product. they do not have unique product. they may try to get more unique product in. the time frame is going to take to do that, he has a better idea than that, he's seen positive for two board members that are positive on the store. i hope they're right. customers right now don't like what they like.

i think you have a contrast there. >> we have less than a minute. care to make predictions on whether jcpenney is around in a year or so? >> i don't want to do that. they have a lot of good employees. i hope they make a change and adjust strategy so they can continue to grow that business. middle market customer, this is not a customer in new york city. this is middle america. >> quickly, if they win, who do they steal customers from? who loses in jcpenney does win? >> i think they're going to have to win against -- they have to win against kohl's or macy's at the lower spectrum. it's a challenge. they'll get new customers. i don't know who that new customer is. you have people forever 21 and a lot of these value retailers, forever 21 there offering good

value. they have uneique exclusive product. i don't see him getting his store filled with product in the near term. >> great to speak with you. hope you'll come on soon. >> make sure you get salvation army in front of every store. i hope they do very well this holiday season. >> we'll get on that. >> the more people are out shopping, the more they'll do better. >> balloon bursting on the floor. there are animal balloons being made for kids' day. in case you were wondering. >> different animal shapes and sizes. not to worry if you hear balloons popping. >> we can rise above the balloon pop. >> i'm with you on that. >> only that? >> we're just days away from the month of december. he's a troublemaker this one. it's historically well received time for stocks and so-called

sa santa claus rallies. we'll look at stores with the best returns heading into year end. >> still ahead, how are sears and kmart faring so far on what i believe is the busiest shopping day of the year? we'll find out. we'll chat with chief merchandising officer and president of sears and kmart when he drops by post 9. or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series from brother. easy to use. it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing.

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♪ [ male announcer ] 'tis the season to discover the kid in all of us. the memories that last, start with the gifts that last. ♪ enjoy free shipping and great values on your holiday shopping from l.l.bean. >> holiday season >> holiday season in full swing. we see a nice rally at the end of the year. it looks like already kicking off today with gains across the board. dan greenhouse, chief global strategist joins us. i know you're a fan of history. is the santa claus rally a real thing or just an urban legend? >> it's a real thing. >> buy stocks now and sell them new year's eve. >> lots of sayings on wall street tend to be not accurate. the concept of santa claus rally

is one of the few that are true. modest outperformance from christmas to january 1st, january 2nd. stock traders almanac would define it first two days of the year as well. you see this year after year. the question for investors this year is whether or not the fiscal cliff gets in the way. in the context of what's happening with black friday, it's a really interest question. think the answer is yes. it does get in the way. >> we never had a fiscal cliff before. >> we're talking about black friday. black friday isn't the holiday shopping season. dana was on cnbc all morning. i'm sure she would agree. most shopping occurring as you get closer to christmas and then maybe saturday or sunday before is the peak. >> no one will make up to the perils of the fiscal cliff any time before it actually occurs and they see their payroll tax suddenly as being taken away. >> i totally agree. the difference may be headlines. people who i generally think

aren't paying attention to walmart and the economy as much as we are, next week when negotiations get into high gear, headlines and leaks, if you will, or conversations will start to hit the press and people -- it might occur to people -- when i tell people everyone's paycheck will go down by 2% next year, that hits home. >> doesn't a setup for back end loaded year whether retail sales or stock market, the consensus on wall street let's assume consensus is right. there will be a deal of putting off of the fiscal cliff. maybe not a full resolution of one but putting off. next week we get bad headlines. stock market goes down. people pull back in savings or spending and a package is announced that pushes us off the fiscal cliff and we rally. make sense? >> makes perfect sense and reasonable outcome. i would like to remind people and i can't believe people forget this. in the context of the debt ceiling debate, everybody at the

time said there will be a deal. kick the can down the road. they did. we did not reach the cliff. the stock market still managed to fall 18% top to bottom and the debt downgrade happened at the bottom. even if you said who cares about the debt ceiling, they'll figure it out. you lost nominally speaking the value of rallies. even if they get a deal that comes late, investors may have begun to mark down risk assets. >> i had a conversation/fight with a client the other day. he was asking -- i'm one of the few people saying that we'll breach this debate and go into the new year without a resolution without a deal. he said what probability do you put on that? i said i'm not very confident of it. let's say 55%. 60%. if you use an 18% drop in stock market as a barometer, you're talking about somewhere from an expected value standpoint around 9% drop in the stock market. we fell 8%.

in my view, when you get about 8%, 9% down, you were in my view from an outcome basis pricing in our expected outcome. i think it's reasonable. if headlines come out next week where these guys are further apart, you could see investors take some of these profits m. >> in hushed whispers at parties, there are people that will say we should go over the fiscal cliff either temporarily just to send a shock or maybe permanently because we need that money. the tax hikes for the wealthy won't make a dent in our debt. is there an argument for pulling a thelma and louise and driving off that cliff? >> i have never seen that. there is a theory -- patty

murray is a prominent democrat. doesn't have the name recognition of harry reid. she clearly says if we don't get what we want, let's go over the cliff. this is the most important part. we talk about the fiscal cliff and recession. this is not as if a fire and brimstone will ring down on the earth on january 1st. slow and steady decline. when i tell people i expect us to breach this and go into the new year, i don't think that this is going to be the power goes out on january 1st. there will be a debate and slope. if you resolve this in a week or week and a half or two weeks, not much will happen economically speaking. the economy will not fold in on itself and we'll have this conversation eating spam in cave in the woods. >> that's good to know. he may be judging from what his weekends are like. >> that's an official view. >> where's the love? happy holidays to everybody. >> spam is not good. >> it's delicious.

>> dan, thanks for stopping by. sears, kmart, walmart, best buy adding last-minute deals to sales list for black friday shoppers. find out what the deals are when president and chief marketing officer of sears and kmart joins us. that's next. ♪ [ engine revs ] ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the mercedes-benz winter event is back, with the perfect vehicle that's just right for you, no matter which list you're on. [ santa ] ho, ho, ho, ho! [ male announcer ] lease a 2013 c250 for $349 a month at your l mercedes-benz dealer.

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is a. two other is a. two other retailers getting the jump, opening thanksgiving night, k-mart and sears. ron bow unjoins us now. of course, this is a new trend, ron. is it worth it? does it pay off? >> i think one of the things that's interesting we saw last night was there's been certainly a trend in consumers wanting more flexibility in how they shop. we've seen it in our members, some of the things we offer them and the ability to buy black -- this trend also having thanksgiving dinner, go out and go shopping is one that's been picking up steam. we saw consumers in the store last night and what was interesting to me is kind of a different attitude in these consumers form not somebody who has camped out overnight until 6:00 a.m. it was a bit more relaxed

shopper, really shopping the whole house than what you traditional see on black friday morning. so an interesting trend for us. >> well, you're coming off a quarter where you reported domestic comp store sales decline 3.1%, 1.6%, 4.8% at k-mart. ron, is there any hope we'll start to see comparable store sales up at k-mart or sears? >> what we're focused on is the way our members want to shop and be more flexible in providing them the shopping experience they're looking for. for example, one of the things we did talk about was the sears.com and k-mart.com sales were up. the part of the business where someone may shop online and pick up a product in five minutes or less at a sears drive-thru or pick it up in a k-mart or maybe a sears show and shop the 50 million items online and have it

sent directly to the store. that was up greater than 50% of our online business. those are two i think really interesting indicators of the strength of the retail strategy, and what consumers are looking for today, which is choice. i think it goes to the core of our strategy, to give our members choice on how they shop and what they shop for. the sears side of the equation, the consumer electronics industry has been a very tough business, as you've seen across the industry. net of consumer electronics, sears was actually composite for the quarter, and two of our biggest businesses, apparel grew in the quarter as well as our core appliance businesses. so those i think are good daters for the transformation of sears and k-mart and the integrated retail strategy we're executing. >> ron, i'm wondering if you get any sense so far of when shopper

went in and bought not only what was on sale, but additional items. you're not just buying what is greatly reduced deal, but picking up other things that may be at higher margins for you? >> again, one of the things that i think was interesting was a different kind of shopper, certainly people, the deals in our member deals attracting shoppers to the store, but they shop the whole house. the c.e. business is a good business, but so was the apparel business in both sears and k-mart. so was our foot business. the tools bit, so kind of a gifting day, so we saw that customer kind of shopping across the formats. i'll say in sears we were non-comp, so we were not open at 8:00 last year, so we'll have to look at the whole weekend and decide the net benefit, but one of the things that was encouraging is how the consumer shopped and how the members

shopped up i think was broader in the house and i think more fun and festive, if i can use that terminology. >> ron, you think you're taking any shar from j.c. penney? >> we've been very focused on fixing our apparel businesses. we discussed it in the past, five consecutive quarters of growth, we're excited about what we put in front of our members starting on sunday of last week, going through, kicking off at 8:00 last night in the sears store. we're pleased with the progress we're making, about you we have a lot more to make in that business. >> ron, we have to leave it there. ron bouie, president of sears and k-mart. >> thanks. much more on black friday and of course this market rally. the nasdaq is up by one full percentage point right now. much more of "squawk on the street" straight ahead.

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time went by very fast. it goes by too, too fast. ♪ but i would do it again in a heartbeat. [ laughs ] ♪ ♪ welcome back. a shortened day for the trading day, but certainly positive thus far. if you're just tuning in, here's what you might have missed. welcome to hour 3 of "squawk on the street." here's what's happening so far.

>> goes from black friday all the way to christmas, and it's a wild and fun time of the year. when you hit toys "r" us, you're exhilarated for it, you look forward to it all years long. >> anybody buying a tablet? anybody? anybody guys a stablet? tablet computer? anybody? >> it was a record crowd last year, but that crowd was competed this year. i waited at the front door for about 18 minutes. the line never stopped from pouring in on the broadway doors. >> this is not "street signs". >> exactly. we play by a different set of rules at post 9. >> we play by melissa's rules here, is what we play by. >> now we're focused on retail, kind of a nice story. >> there you have it, the opening bell. >> now you see bricks and mortar stores opening on thanksgiving trying to meet customer expectations and deliver that

value so they're not sitting at home doing couch commerce, they're out in the stores on thanksgiving night, creating a new family tradition. and it begins, the countdown to christmas. ho ho ho. ♪ here comes santa claus ♪ and all his reindeer ♪ pulling on the reins ♪ bells are wringing ♪ children singing hope you had a nigh thanksgiving. junior traders here with all kinds of fun things. welcome to post 9. a check on the market. the dow is up 111 points, the nasdaq up by more than 1%. we have old technology really giving us a hand. hewlett-packard, intel, ibm, making very nice advances. after national bank in canada raise the price target ahead of

the blackberry 10 global launch in january. and s.a.p. considering listing in shanghai in a mood that would add to the u.s. and german listings, as sales jumped 40% in the third quarter. all right. let's get to your road map for the next hour. we are taking the pulse of the consumers and retails on this black friday. who better to sit down with than the man responsible for 40 upskate outlet shopping centers, steven tanger. newtons palms, oh, my. which tablet will come out on top this year? chances are if you are shopping today, you probably are working up an appetite. we'll go to famed chef and restaurant tour david burk. hopefully something z he'll

bring in somebody for us. >> out on the streets today, certainly, let's head back out to the malls and see how traffic is doing. courtney reagan is at the mall in dayton, ohio, checking out the action. >> reporter: about 10:00 a.m., about an hour ago, traffic did start to pick back up here. craig johnson says he does believe that traffic is a little lighter this year, but because consumers understand that the best deals aren't necessarily always on black friday. others still point to the couch commerce effect and the strong online sales. ibm says that thanksgiving day sales online are already up 18%, but the retail ceos that have spoken to nbc so far today are very happy with the traffic they have seen. >> i've never seen it bring kids, but the 8:00 hour worked well for family. >> that crowd last year was exceeded at this store certainly this morning.

i waited for about 189 minutes, and the line never stopped from pouring in. >> reporter: here in ohio we have seen a lot of macy's, bath & body works, even j.c. penney shopping bags. they're scouting multiple locations around is the country and he said that -- but fewer people in line than what they saw last year. sterne agee says it was busier in the morning than what he observed last year now, walmart says between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and midnight on thanks giving, it served 22 million shopper, processing 10 millions transactions or nearly 5,000 items per sect. the world's largest retailer had 1.8 million towels, 1.3 million televisions, 1.3 million dolls

and 250,000 bicycles. if you take a look at shares of radio shack, not having a great day sitting at the all-time low, but the manager here told us traffic was good, the average transaction about 100, $150. interestingly, more folks paying with cash this year than normal. back to you guys. >> thanks, courtney. we're still puzzled by the towels. televisions, dolls, bicycles, apparently a lot of people will be getting towels this season. >> seems like not a good gift. >> i have to give a shoutout to oakwood high school, my wife's alma mater there in dayton, maybe the towel is to wipe your kid's knee off? i don't know. is that a thing? is that trending on twitter? i want maybe it's deceptive. if you buy a towel set, it implies many towels, so actually you're buying a certain number of sets -- >> if i'm pima cotton when you

get out in the morning. >> it does make a difference. >> we're going to get to the bottom of this mystery. >> i use a sham wow. >> highly absorbant. shoppers heading to the outlet mauls. tanger factor malls many of them opened at 10:00 p.m. thanksgiving. and will remain open today. joins you is steve tanger. give us a sentence for traffic as many of the stores that make up the customers for you? >> the early indications is we have another record year of traffic at tanger outlets. for the most part weather was really good compared to last year. traffic was up post-hunt sandy stress even on the east coast, people are out and about. the big boxes opened at 8:00, we opened at 10:00. about 50% of our stores, though,

opened with great values even as early as veterans day. another 20% started their sales last weekend. so we're looking for a great holiday season in addition to another record-breaking black friday. >> steve, which retailers are being most aggressive in terms of their promotions to get people in the door? >> the hot brand around the country still remain, it doesn't matter whether they're deep discounts or not. the hot brands in our centers are coach, underarmour, j. crew, nike, michael kors, the gap, they still offer great products. >> good to chat with you again, sir. we've been talking about pennies, are you agnostic about who wins these ballotsed? how do you stay above the fray? boy, there is a lot of conflict going on in a number of

different stores right now. >> consumers want value every day on the best brand-name products, designer products in the world. they get those at tanger youth lets. the outlet stores remain the place where they get the best value every day of the week. >> you now, how is the health of all your tenants, so to speak? what are you seeing in terms of their willingness to extend leases? are you in a position where you can actually increase lease rates at all these days? >> as of lastary, tanger outlets around the country was 98.6 occupied, that's a record for the end of the quarter in the 30 years we've been in business. sales at the end of the third quarter were up 7%. we are -- with sales going up, our retailers find the outlets the most or one of the most profitable business units in their corporation.

so we're able to continue to drive rents, but still offer a very low cost of occupancy. >> steve, across the industry, particularly in the power centers, the strip malls, outdoor shopping centers, inventories are at history lows, do you think there's a tipping point where we'll see much more expansion, seeing that inventories are so low? >> the inventories are not low at the outlets. the capital allocation by ceos of the major courses we do business with keep the outlets fully stocked so that our consumers -- i want i meant inventories in terms of square foota ag footage. >> it's nice to be in a sector like the outlets, which are maybe undersupplied to the consumer. there's tremendous demand for a space as evidenced by our high occupancy. we opened two new centers, one outside of houston on the way to

galveston 30 days ago with record-breaking crowds. on the west side of phoenix in glendale last week when we opened our newest center there. we have a very robust pipeline of new development opportunities and we're going to try to fill as much of the demand for consumers loving the outlet experts and our tenant partners trying to provide great products for the consumer. >> steve, thanks for checking in. appreciate it. >> my pleasure, and happy holidays to you and your families. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. the only person on the said that's been to the west branch mish gain tanger outled. >> you're right. you get a prize. >> recovery rod trip part 2, melissa lee and sully go to west -- >> do we have to share a car? i want i'll bet you rick has been there. he's a chicago guy. he's no doubt explored auld

wilding of northern michigan. >> i don't light getting that close to that large a body of water. all right. now on wednesday before thanksgiving, which nobody was really paying a lot of attention, i picked up a story that really surprised me. cantor fitzgerald fined $7 hundred,000 for a s.a.g. fund violation. nobody heard it. nothing. what's really fascinating is in the context of the other two very famous cases, mf and peregrine financial. so let's set the stage. mf lose -- they didn't really lose, but took s.e.g. funds. flag forward, july of this year, peregrine financial group, $200 million, gone, ponzi scheme. now, do we see a lot of justice in mf?

no, i've done a botload of spots to it. we've had the lawyer, james katulis. who do you think is the first person that called? i asked, did you know about this? but he said, yes, here's how strange it was. this violation occurred on $3 million. remember, when you talk about cantor fitz, you think big cash player. they're like the 64th biggest fcm, which means 1/3 very tiny. a $3 million violation garnered them a $700,000 fine, but this was between a period of january 24s to january 26th. how interesting, because the first salvo of regulators regarding mf actually occurred on january 25th. you moe what they said? all clear. after what happened with mf, we've looked through jewel dishly all the other fms,

everything is as it should bep. mavs smack-dab when this violation occurred. so i don't know if i should be upset or happy. 700,000 fine on a 3 million violation in there is some jurisprudence fast and heavy. sully, back to you. >> rick, thanks very much. let's get to a market flash and go to kayla tausche. >> b.a.x. ticker, shares are steadily rising on the back of a "wall street journal" report that the company is close to buys a swedish medical equipment maker. the journal says that deal could be announced in the next two to three weeks. you can see the market likes it. back to you. tvs tablet smartphones, oh, boy, the top tech gadgets to put on your list. we'll sit down with top chef and restaurant tour david burke to see what the holiday season means for the restaurant biz.

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. . holiday shoppers have been waiting all week for the deese deals, but what will be some of the surprise? john biggs is the east coast editor of tech crunch. first off, welcome. we know the ipad and all this other stuff. you have this giant wii

controller. >> this is the hot toy of the season. i wasn't allowed to bring the rest of it, but this is the new controller for the wii. >> is want gone? >> it's still usable. but there are some games that sort of have a map on this, and then you use the wand for the other kids to play. do you like it? >> it sort of turns it into a personal console. so it's really changed the way you look at the wii. >> in terms of tablets, it's not the ipad that you have. >> this is not the ipad. it looks very similar, but this is the new kindle 8.9 inch, a big, beautiful screen essentially all your books here it's about as thing as the smaller kindle, so if -- >> how much?

>> this is about $349, i believe. >> more expensive than the ipad mini? >> yes, but this has a much higher resolution screen. it depends on the version you get. >> he has a watch over there or something, too. >> i know. what is that? >> i built this with my son. this is called the spy-contendsie lab solder time. it comes with a chip, this is about $60. you solder it together. >> you solder it with -- >> this is a real geek toy, make a burgeoning boy scout with an electronics badge or somebody who wants to to build. >> it doesn't sound like something you do in a new york city apartment, soldering. >> who knows. you and your son did a great job. i believe a bit that cameras are buggy whips.

>> yeah. >> are people still buying actual cameras? itches well, i think what you're looking at, you're looking at point-and-shoots and dlsrs these are the big giant cameras that brings out, this is a nice mix fur of the two. for about $600. this has a removable lens, so you can do zoom, street photography, like tourism, that sort of thing with a camera that's very, very affordable. >> and the last thing that you have is the lenovo yoga? what is that? >> just like regular yoga, this allows you to bend and twist, and do all crazy things with your computer. it's a lap ton that goes like this, and you can fold it around, turn it into a tablet. >> that's kin of exile. the keyboard disconnects it so,

but on the front -- >> is it heavy? >> it's fairly heavy. about as heavy as a regular laptop. >> what's the operating system? >> that's windows 8. >> i've seen a lot of ads "wired" this monday, has the window 8 mockup on the -- have you seen this? microsoft is spending a ton. do you think it's going to work? >> i think so. i think windows 8 is really exciting. a big change for windows. we're used to the windows you drag around on the screen. these are tiles that show up on the screen that you can swipe around, icons, you don't have them anymore, you essentially have tiles that give us lots of information about the app.s that are running. >> thank you, john, for stopping by. we had both thoroughly enjoyed it, especially brian. >> i loves me gage either.

all those black friday shoppers might be getting hung remember. up next david burke drops by post 9 to talk the holiday shopping season appeared the restaurant biz. the heat map looks like a good day for the dow. old technology, hewlett-packard, looked at that gain. stay tuned. your way to retirement, get on e-trade. set up a real plan. frank! oh wow, you didn't win? i wanna show you something... it's my shocked face. [ gasps ] [ male announcer ] get a retirement plan that works... at e-trade.

i heard you guys can ship ground for less than the ups store. that's right. i've learned the only way to get a holiday deal is to camp out. you know we've been open all night. is this a trick to get my spot? [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. save on ground shipping at fedex office.

who's winning and who's losing? all day today on cnbc. all right. look at that. all 30 of the dow 30 are higher. the old-cap names, if you want to call them, they're doing fine. it's a santa claus rally. a reminder we close at 1:00. >> that is in part thanks to apple, which has really picked up steam in the past half hour or so. restaurants also experience

a boost this time of year. chef and restaurant tour david burke owns seven restaurants in new york, new jersey, connecticut, chicago, including one inside the bloomingdale's flabship store. good to have you here. >> good to be here. >> today pluming dale's was packed and continues. that should continue through the first, second week in january. >> what do you see throughout the season at your stand-alone restaurants? >> gift card sales are up. yesterday we had a record thanksgiving days. even in rumsen where we got affected by the hind a bit, even up in foxwoods. i think the season will be strong in new york city. our restaurant in the james hotel in so hho is slow to recover, i guess because of the

offices being recovering from the hurricane. >> i know people in the industry and they say it's different now and may never go back. >> it's a little different now. we changed the way we operate. it's a little harder, we have to work a little smarter. wine sales have changed. expense accounts have changed. expectation levels are higher, but people are a little more educated about wine prices, service, food in general due to many things, and so it's a little -- there's a lot of choices. >> when you say change, though, does that mean consumers are looking for more at lower prices? >> i think they're more informed due to social media. more information deed to television shows about quality of food, or even the price of a bottle of wine? >> retail price of wine on an app.. some people -- you can't just mark up wine three or four times like the old days.

what about average check 1234 well, the arch check play, the higher in place is elite restaurants still pretty expensive. that category grew and the fast substantial, which is what we have in bloomingdale's and delivery, that grew a lot. does the fiscal cliff matter to you in terms of how you look at what your sales are expected to be from now until the end of the year? >> yeah, this time of year we

expect maximum capacity, and usually the fourth quarter and sings the -- parties didn't start until late november, early december. >> what do they say to make a million in the restaurant business, you have to start with ten? >> to make a small fortune, you start with a large fortune. >> you are a very successful guy, but it seems a few celebrity chefs seem to be making the coin. can the average guy -- >> there's a lot of fine dining chefs and most have started at the fine dining level tend to open a fast casual. >> or diner like guy fieri. >> and television amedia aspect certainly helps out. 123450 david, thanks for stopping by. i've been calling out for your

cavatelli. >> that's the number one selling dish. >> the short rib cavatelli. >> how is the blooming onion doing? did [ laughter ] >> i'm just kidding. >> nice to see you guys. a report from the best buy in california. there have been lines since sunday. who are these crazy people. jane wells will dig them out. of course, the bells are about to sound across europe. we'll have that close right after the break. sfwhoo [ male announcer ] if you suffer from heartburn 2 or more days a week, why use temporary treatments when you can prevent the acid that's causing it with prevacid24hr. with one pill prevacid24hr works at the source to prevent the acid that causes frequent heartburn all day and all night. and with new prevacid24hr perks, you can earn rewards from dinner deals to music downloads for purchasing prevacid24hr. prevent acid all day and all night for 24 hours with prevacid24hr.

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. 90 minutes until we close mobs ago, and they were higher on opt millennium, kind of ignoring what happened in cyprus, but an unexpected rise in german business sentiment overshadowing news that eu leaders have called off stocks. so here you go. lookingty european markets. the ftse in london, the spanish markets, all higher. a gun run there. the euro rising. all around, a solid week. >> very solid week. let's check in on some of the movers from here on the floor.

mary thompson, there's a lot of shouting kids here today. that's for sure. >> they are there's a performance, and it's interactive. we're also see a solid performance here. volume is very light. that might put us at about 1.3, 1.4, which would be probably the lightest volume day on a black friday that we have seen since at least 2007. a couple things that brian was mentioning earlier, helping to lift the european markets, playing here at home, that improvement in german business confidence, also, of course, progress in greece, and also the flash pmi reading from china, which rose above 50 for the first time in 13 months. as a rule more of the risk on trades in this low volume light

trading session. consumers staples, discretionary and industrial. these are the best performing sectors in today's session. it is black friday. take a look at how they're doing. they're performing fairly well. the national retail federation expecting re -- or holiday sales to increase by 4.1%. also the tech sector, stocks are performing very well. i melissa, back to you. time to check in on the energy and metals trade. jackie? >> good morning. brian, we're watching the price here up about 2355 cents. traders telling me we're expected to trade in a raj in the next couple days.

settle to take some profit. meantime it's not sprys to them. we do have the cease-fire. also taking a look at the metals complex. gold is getting a bid today. and chatter out of greece, that also is a bit of the positive sentiment that set oil up as well. a on the lot of traders looking to get home and back to the 4re69overs. let's head over to kate kellie melissa, we've learned as of this morning, in the latest goch kay was approached asked if he would consider operate, mar toma refused suggesting -- or

about his own culpability, and whether they could built an effective case against him. is that just standard legal bluster? still man declined to com further, but his client will be in a manhattan federal court on monday morning. no dowel we'll hear more then. in the meantime much -- let alone a future case against cohen. this case has little in the way of wiretap evidence, i'm stole, even though reportedly had -- when the trades now in question were made. it isn't clear whether those recording occurred at the time the key conversation between martoma and cohen was had, but the lack of quotes in the complaint suggests perhaps they did not have those reporting. still, it's a very tough moment for cohen, who said he's

confidence that his behavior was appropriate. it appears from the complaints he was directly involved in a questionable and highly profitable trade, and the person who initiated it specifically sought cohen's permission, david and melissa, before he went forward. we don't know what cohen knew about the allegedly illegal inside information, but that he essential authorized those sales. thanks for the update. let's check in with rick santelli. he has a special edition of "the san tellest exchange." should you talk politics at the holiday table, rick? >> i tell you what, i'm certainly glad i read the article. bill is a friend columnist at "forbes," a boston-based venture capitalist. i like to read just about everybody you write, bill.

welcome. viewers, be careful. he's a self-proclaimed libertarian. tell me and tell sully a bit about your article that we all found so interesting about why you should never discuss politics at thanksgiving tables. >> thank you, rick and happy thanksgiving. it's a minefield with family and friends if you're a bit of an outlier. i live in boston and am -- one of the things they're not used to is someone who disagrees with their opinions. they're so used to arguing with strawmen that when they get up against somebody who has thought through issues is a bit of a stock. really warm people, great hosts, i was surronalded by college professors for the evening. the evening did start out slowly, and i did try to hold my tongue. they were congratulating themselves for being so smart. it ended up becoming quite lively by the end of 9 night.

>> it always gets lively around my holiday dinner table as well, but at the epicenter of this was a debate about our constitution versus others, and specifically about art i, section 8, maybe you can expound upon that a bit. not only is that part of the story fascinating, but a nice seg wait to the last part of my question. >> lovers of the constitution, you know, people keep reading glasses around, i keep these things around. it's not very hard to read, but i was busying the original construction of the constitution, the idea of enumerated powers. here's the 13 things the government can do. as i was holding my own, i was struck with a question from the university, and he said how many constitutions have you read? he had some. i never actually read them, so i bowed my head in submission, we

moved on to dessert, but i went to google like anybody else and googled up about ten constitutions from around the world. it was a wonderful afternoon studying the plumbing of other democracies, surely enough, ours was unique, we don't follow it anymore, but the idea you constrain the powers of government and these were not supposed to be crossed by congress is something that's not been done elsewhere around the world. now you get to the last question, and i'm much more serious on this. another article you've written i found fascinating, the entitlement society is now going to go full gear. obviously you weren't a big fan of the way the election turned out. i like being a strict constitutionalist, and i like article i, section 8. are we ever going to get back to those types of disciplines, or as in your article stated, you think we crossed over and there's no turning back? >> no, we passed the tipping point. i don't think there's any doubt we reached the tipping point.

we've reached that era where our foundest most feared where a majority of people could voice themselves a living at the spend of the minority. i don't think there's any coming back. i think we are on the same trajectory as europe, and europe is on the same trajectory as greece, so it's time to look for yourself and families to take care of your personal prone. we cannot solve the country's problems. >> i hope you are not kreb8g9, but we'll have you back to talk about the journey. sully, it's all yours. >> thank you. rick and bill, thank you. i like bill. he's a smart guy. >> good conversation. coming up next, protesters at walmart. we have live at the scene. 6 try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink.

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. among the . among the protesters, some employees walking off the job. hampton pearson at a capital plaza walmart. set the scene for us. >> reporter: actually, brian, a short while ago this walmart was the target of an incredibly well-organized protest, a black friday protest, if you will. hundreds of demonstrators taking the lead from the united food and commercial workers union along with community activists.

they've been trying to turn up the heat for better pay and benefits for the 12.4 million employees. part of their organizing tactics have been encouraging workers to become more vocal, even walking off their jobs, at the same time trying to pressure walmart not to retaliate. both sides came face-to-face today. can you say these employees will not be head in some type of punishment for their activities? can you say that to me, sir? >> i can say we would never retaliate against any associate. now, one of knolls walmart workers, who did walk off the

job and was on strike herself today, says workers of course deserve better pay and benefits with those kinds of numbers. >> we are workers, neighbors, we are the heart of their store. we are the ones that make them generate the billions that they get. all we want is decent wages, we want a living wage. railroad now, we have been trying to talk to customers at this store, none of them really wanted to go on camera, but surprising with the showing here how oblivious they are of the effort between walmart employees for perhaps even organizing i want hampton, thank you very much. now we want an update on black friday. traffic at the malls we're joined from our hq, but she's fresh off an -- roxanne, who is

buys what? i want well, first i want to say, i was there since 7:00 a.m. this morning. it was off to a no so robust start, but malls are clearly gaining momentum. this year overall we're seeing shoppers with many more bags versus last year in we had to sum up who are the early morning winners, it would be express, victoria's secret, urban outfitters and american eagle. >> how does it compare to last year, roxanne? >> i would say if i had to summarize, the average discount is about 40% off. it varies anywhere from 40 to 60, but the majority are at 40. interestingly it's flat to last year. i think that's important. last year the industry entered the holiday season with way too much inventory, so there was a real need to promote. the fact we're seeing the

anniversary despite more well-controlled inventories is interesting. i think what you see going on is you've got a reversal of sourcing cost pressure. so as we move through the holiday season, i would expect promotional levels to either mick up that or increase it. >> who's the company that has surprised you the most to the up side in the past year or so, roxanne? >> wow, surprised the most? i i would say the continue d strength of tjx, likely at the expend of mid tier department stores. i would say the off-pricers have become more mainstream with the

average consumers. a quick market flash. >> we're watching shares of molycorp, a percentage leader, also a volume leaer. that's largely on the back of a spate of insider buying. investors like that executives feel confident about the road ahead. in case you hadn't heard, it's ballet frick. coming up next, we are checking with the nation's leading retailer of storage production. skip continuedle joins us next.

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it it says brian in the prompter. >> listen to those kids. they're all hopped up on candy. the dow is many 101 points. before the end of the show, i will promote what i'm doing next week. >> just doing it now. "recovery road trip". >> we're going to force it in. next week. i built 238 metro indexes, the biggest stocks in those 23 areas, tracked them for a year.

every day i stared at the screen, that's all i did. >> so devoted. >> we're going to count down. in three cities in three days. it's going to take a lot of coordination. it's going to be very cool. i hope the airlines work. if i get starred -- >> three cities in three days. >> i may have to pull a forrest gump. "recovery road trip". >> i'm going to tune in. >> you have to. we work at the network. >> why choose to if i didn't. trying to stay organized is not always an easy task, but the container store may make your job easier. it is the nation's leading retailer of storage products. joining us is kip tindall great to have you with us. >> it's great to be with you. as you've been talking about, it's the most wonderful time of the year to be a retailer.

>> i guess it is. you have great wrapping paper and great boxes and gifting ite items. >> it's really a huge season for us, almost as important to the container store as it is to a department store. we really do -- we spent 35 years creating what stationary industry will tell you is the greatest collection of gift wrap and packaging in the world, most beautiful and extensive selection of totes, wrapping paper, ribbons and bows. that's a big part of our christmas. the other part is something that's very hard to find, whimsical, delightful stocking stuffers of of imaginable type. where do you go to find the unexpected treasurers you put in the stockings. so we'll get you organized, give you a dream closet, all that stuff. what we really do for the next

few weeks is stocking stuffers and what kell call -- >> i want a dream closet, kip. in terms of getting people in to buy those stocking stuffers. with a name like container store, you don't necessarily thinks your store is a place to pick up gifts. how do you get that message to across to consumers. >> we started in dallas in 1978, so for 35 years. so we have just an increasingly strong following every year for that, and i think the stocking stuffers and gift wrap create the traffic. wheel they're there, even though consumers are so busy, they hopefully can't resist organizing their pantry or closet or other delightful gifts. >> kip, we look forward to sealing what you have these days. the ceo of the container store. i don't know if you go to buy any gifts for your loved ones. >> i don't have the shoes collection you do, so everything is organized.

i'm highly organized guy, anyway, by i hope you get your dream closet. >> everybody wants that. >> i'm your fan, your fan, singular. coming up, some inspiration from the street. ♪ oh, look. cute. oh, look. cute. [ male announcer ] 'tis the season to discover the kid in all of us. enjoy free shipping and great values on your holiday shopping from l.l. bean. or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series from brother. easy to use. it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing.

can i still ship a gift in time for christmas? yeah, sure you can. great. where's your gift? uh... whew. [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. ship fedex express by december 22nd for christmas delivery. ♪ you can stay in and like something... ♪ [ car alarm deactivates ] ♪ ...or you can get out there with your family and actually like something. ♪ the lexus december to remember sales event is on, offering some of our best values of the year. this is the pursuit of perfection.

here's a here's a message of inspiration, a commercial that jpmorgan was running yesterday. let's gift thanks, for an idea, a grand idea called. the idea if you work hard, if you had a dream, if you work with your neighbors, you can do most anything. this led to other ideas, like liberty and rock and roll, to free markets, free enterprise, and freed refills. >> that really caught my attention. i don't know if you caught that yesterday, brian, i was in the kitchen, this was on, and i